Fedizens who enjoy Sichuan food:

Adrianna Tan

well paris has a bunch of interesting chinese places these days. it has homemade tofu (best tofu, you can buy takeout), many many sichuan restaurants as well you could buy back to a hotel if yo'ure ever there

dusseldorf has a HUGE sichuan restaurant scene

https://restofworld.org/2023/xiaohongshu-users-make-dusseldorf-destination/

possibly the most exciting one in all of europe except london

paris also interestingly has incredible hotpot and ramen (kodawari)

all the best!

Delib

@dentangle

This week, I refilled my pepper grinder with a mixture of 1/4 Sichuan pepper kernals, and 3/4 black pepper; two different plant species I believe. The Sichuan numb or tingle the mouth, so I find it a bit bothersome, but mixing a bit in seems good. I am not eating nightshades (like cayenne) any more, so am stepping up other sorts of spices.

Brett Sheffield (he/him)

@Delib Aye. Sichuan "peppercorns" are apparently not from the pepper bush at all, whereas white, black and red pepper are all the same thing processed differently.

Brett Sheffield (he/him)

OK. What to do for a first Sichuan dish? We had some beef in the fridge, and I was determined to try something with doubanjiang.

Shui Zhu Niu Rou (Sichuan boiled beef) looked like a good place to start as I had all the ingredients.

#cooking #sichuan

Brett Sheffield (he/him)

Above all, this *looks* like a sichuan dish. Bright red chillis and oils.

Brett Sheffield (he/him)

Frying the doubanjiang in oil until it changes colour. Thanks to @skinnylatte and @arichtman for explaining this step.

I've never cooked with doubanjiang before, but it became obvious what to do once it was in the pan. Very much like a tarka/tadka in Indian cuisine. The bean paste changes colour, becomes aromatic and the oil takes on that lovely sichuan red.

NeonSnake

@dentangle

This looks good!

@skinnylatte @arichtman

Brett Sheffield (he/him)

The dish doesn't take long to cook. Once done, we take it off the heat and top it with green onions, raw garlic and ginger and the rest of the chilli and peppercorns. Then we pour hot oil over these to finish it with Dao Kou La Jiao (knife edge chillis).

Apparently. I really have no idea what I'm doing But one thing working after school as a Questacon explainer taught me is just sound confident (and read the sign to the visitor that's right in front of them).

Brett Sheffield (he/him)

@neonsnake @skinnylatte @arichtman It was amazing, although a little bit too salty so will adjust next time. I used stock instead of water which was a little bit too much salt on top of the bean paste.

NeonSnake

@dentangle
@skinnylatte @arichtman

Not urgent, but at some point: I wouldn't mind learning if there's any pre-prep tricks that could make things easier for Cantonese cooking?

I enjoy the cookery, and love the food, but haven't done it for ages, due to (in my *very limited* experience) having to do the whole dish from scratch on the night, which is often beyond me nowadays.

Brett Sheffield (he/him)

@neonsnake @skinnylatte
@arichtman

Quite a few dishes follow the basic pattern of:

1) velvet/marinate the meat/protein
2) make a sauce
3) stir-fry vegetables
4) stir-fry meat
- generally at this point I cook the rice -
5) then toss the sauce, vegetables and meat back in the wok to combine and re-heat for serving

You could in many cases make the sauce in advance (eg. black bean sauce). Can also buy this.

You can also pre-chop the vegetables (I often cut up enough for a day or two.

NeonSnake

@dentangle @skinnylatte @arichtman

That seems sensible - I can see that doing a batch of sauce, and pre-chopping the veg would make things easier.

I can't imagine that marinading/cooking the meat/protein in batches or ahead of time would be sensible , but again, very open to correction.

Feels do-able, given my limitations; probably just not every night.

Is there anything you'd be happy batch-cooking for microwave/easy re-heating later?

This is me thinking more about the people I deliver food to, more than myself, and is why I specified Cantonese - they'd love a "Chinese Take-Away", and Cantonese is largely what British Chinese Takeaways are.

Brett Sheffield (he/him)

@neonsnake @skinnylatte @arichtman Some receipes call for marinating overnight (eg. some versions of Mongolian Beef/Lamb).

I'll write up some ideas when I get a sec.

You can definitely make many of these dishes in batch for re-heating. It's what nearly every takeaway does.

Any of the "crispy" dishes won't be so crispy (making them more authentic British takeaway ), but dishes like Mongolian Lamb, Beef in Black Bean, Lemon Chicken etc would all reheat well I should think.

NeonSnake

@dentangle @skinnylatte @arichtman

If I can batch the meat/protein, that would be ideal - superplus ideal if I can do the sauces too.

(In the same way that British Indian Restaurant cooking is largely batched and then stir-fried to order)

I've done beef in black bean a few times for them, that went down well.

In terms of authenticity, this might sound questionable, and I'm very aware of this - but I need it to be within shouting distance of what they'd get from a take-away, as my primary purpose is "feeding them".

I've spent enough weeks/months/years in my life all over China and Hong Kong to know that a chicken chow mein from the local "Mandarin Palace" is *not* authentic, but I need - right now - to be able to replicate Mandarin Palace

Brett Sheffield (he/him)

@neonsnake @skinnylatte @arichtman I'm afraid that anything you cook yourself is going to taste much better than any takeaway in the UK

I have never in the UK (England/Scotland) had an edible takeaway Cantonese. They are all, universally, terrible.

This baffles me, as good Cantonese restaurants are easy to find, and I taught myself in a couple of weeks to make Cantonese as good as any restaurant I've been to.

Indian took me *years* to learn how to make to good takeaway standard.

Brett Sheffield (he/him)

@neonsnake @skinnylatte @arichtman That's not to say I can cook *every* dish, but I can make all the usual things *I* would order in a typical Cantonese-style restaurant (with the exception of things like soft-shelled crab which I can't easily buy).

And dumplings. That's, like, a whole art unto itself and there are places that specialise in that. I can make an Aussie dim-sim, but there's a whole world of Chinese dumplings out there.